1. Technical Field
This invention relates to material handling and packaging. More specifically, the invention relates to a system and method for accurately and quickly orienting articles, such as desiccant canisters, for repeatable conveyance.
2. Description of Related Art
Sorbents have been used conventionally in packaging of products to extend the life of those products. In one application, a sorbent is provided in a canister, such as a polymer-based canister, and that canister is placed in a larger container designed to hold some product. This application is particularly well known in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical arts, in which the sorbent canister is placed in a bottle or vial along with dry pharmaceuticals, such as pills, to absorb any moisture in the bottle.
Conventionally, the canisters have been placed in the containers before or after they are filled with the pharmaceutical and either manually or by automated processes. However, the demand for pharmaceuticals has increased immensely. While automated processes to dispense pharmaceuticals have been re-worked to quicken the dispensing of the pharmaceutical into the container, the time it takes to place the canister in the container is too slow. In fact, the act of placing the sorbent canister in the container is one of the slowest processes, and thus slows the entire pharmaceutical packaging system.
One of the reasons that insertion of sorbent canisters into larger containers is slow is that it is difficult to orient canisters upstream of a dispensing station, so that a steady supply of canisters is available.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved system that quickly and reliably orients sorbent canisters, for example, to prepare them for dispensing.